Excel Charts vs PivotCharts | Comparison | Which is Best?

Posted on: 04/08/2022

Which is best in Excel? Classic CHARTS or PIVOTCHARTS? I will show you both ways of creating charts in Excel. I demonstrate step by step what's involved in each method, which one is the most flexible and powerful, and which one I prefer.

We take a look at creating some classic charts (in Excel, the shortcut is ALT + F1) using a date-based cell range, and I show you how to customize the appearance to skip dates without data.

The second method, using PivotCharts, is also demonstrated in this tutorial. We look at how easy it is to create a PivotTable and then a PivotChart from it and obtain a powerful and flexible chart with a few clicks.

YouTube Video

Video Chapters / Bookmarks

00:00 Introduction
00:17 Creating a classic chart
02:10 Creating a PivotChart
03:15 Closing remarks

Keyboard shortcuts to create a chart

F11 - Create a chart on a separate worksheet
ATL + F1 - create a chart on the current worksheet

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Chris Menard

Chris Menard is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and is employed full-time as a Trainer for BakerHostetler, one of the nation’s largest law firms. Menard has a YouTube channel with over 900 technology videos covering Excel, Word, Zoom, Teams, Outlook, Gmail, Google Calendar, and other resources that over 15 million viewers have appreciated. Menard also does public speaking at conferences for CPAs and Administrative Professionals. Connect with Chris on LinkedIn at chrismenardtraining.com/linked or on YouTube at chrismenardtraining.com/youtube